


Lacrimas

by thejapanesemapletree



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: Expanded Universe, F/M, Original Cybertronian Colonies, Short Story Cycle, heavy focus on Esmeral's self-discovery lol, inspired by the Transformers: Victory series
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-20
Updated: 2019-01-02
Packaged: 2019-09-23 14:13:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17081816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thejapanesemapletree/pseuds/thejapanesemapletree
Summary: “She will be interesting this one,” The Mistress of Flame said, seemingly out of nowhere. “She has something of Solus Prime in her—something in her eyes that make the tears, but I’m not sure what.”





	1. Chapter 1: A Starlight Emergence

**Author's Note:**

> Based in the IDW Comics verse, but I'm too lazy to go back and re-read everything to get every detail right lol

“Matriarch—Captain—one of the sparks has emerged early.”

Furnacia looked away from the spaceship deck window to the one speaking. Her engine played up in anger as she saw it was one of the reliable bots, the truth-tellers, who she could trust. Without hesitation, she marched over to the bot, her shoulders squared like she was preparing for battle.

“Show me.”

The messenger stiffened. Her derma parted like she thought to say something, but changed her mind, and instead whirled around to exit through the interlock doors. The bot hurried down the hallway, while Furnacia followed suit, her heel struts clacking as she stomped and her pistons playing up almost to the point of overheating. She scowled at the noticeable diming of the lights as they moved further from the deck. They would be landing to refuel, soon, so she forwent that irritation as the messenger paused outside a set of doors. With a tap on the doorpad, they slid open, the messenger almost cowering away as warm light poured into the hallway. Furnacia’s derma twitched, but she reset her face plates before she moved into the room.

“She’s glitching,” the messenger bot called after her, in a small voice. “They forced the communication coding into her processor.”

In the excess light, Furnacia saw that the room had been arranged into a makeshift medbay. A slab berth had been shoved against the wall opposite the windows, where one of the communication minibots clung to the lip of the berth. Hearing the doors open, she perked to attention, then fluttered away from the berth to stand formally with her arms angled over her waist, where her pieces of satellite dish panels bounced like a bodice.

“Matriarch—thank you for coming so quickly.”

Furnacia always got a little surprised at how direct and confident one so small could be, but she brushed it aside.

For behind the minibot, there rested another: sitting upright, and staring with eyes unseeing at the vast, dark emptiness of the outside, her body the brilliant electric-blue of new protoform metal. She bad been removed long enough that her plating was starting to harden. Odd shapes had formed down her back like animal wings, and protrusions not unlike horns or ears crowned her head. But perhaps what was most startling of all were her optics—and the pink, glistening tears that poured from them, streaking her faceplates in swirling iridescence. Furnacia startled a little: both bewildered at the hollow, crying face of the protoform, and the white servo that came up to touch it.

“Poor, cursed femme…” The Mistress of Flame cooed. “To be in pain so young.”

Even with her plating as pure and white as snow or unmarred as diamonds, her holiness The Mistress of Flame brushed away the protoform’s bright tears, exhaling her vents in a lulling shush. She sat beside the protoform, half-leaning on the berth, her white cloak blending her into the wall. Metallic golden rays splayed from the end of her cloak like a gentle, rising sun—the cuts the same shape as the ornaments on her headcrest. She moved gently, and rather passively, like she was scrutinizing the newborn rather than coddling it. She turned away from the protoform without hesitation, rising to stand fully with a ruffle of her cloak and interlocking of her digits before her pelvis plating. It was another moment before Furnacia realized The Mistress of Flame was waiting for her, watching her with optics half-lidded.

“Well?” The Mistress of Flame spoke into the silence.

Furnacia’s posture subconsciously hardened. Her wiring twitched under her plating, and her jaw hinge tightened to the point of pain. Yet, she had to answer, so she ungritted her dente the best she could, releasing a hot ex-vent.

“What happened?” Furnacia all but snapped. “Did—Did you do this?”

The Mistress of Flame’s optics opened all the way. The communication minibot tensed at the sudden clash of spirits, looking away from the protoform to blink at the two. They stared at one another for a long moment before The Mistress of Flame turned her helm towards the minibot, cutting the tension with the shutting of her optics.

“Return to your post, little one.”

The minibot tensed further, then nodded once. She bowed to each of them in turn, and she scurried out the door, leaving Furnacia and The Mistress of Flame alone with the protoform. The Mistress of Flame allowed her optical ridge to furrow and her optics to open, the Sulphur-yellow of her optics burning like The Forge of Solus Prime itself.

“You should be careful who you turn the sharpness of your glossa towards,” she rumbled. “You may be The Matriarch of Incaendium, but you will not always be free from consequence.”

Furnacia stopped her servos from curling into fists. Her derma parted, like she wanted to speak, or curse, but a greater part of her checked that impulse and she closed her intake without comment. The Mistress of Flame watched her for a moment after that, but soon saw that Furnacia was not going to object. Her shoulder struts shifted in discomfort, but in the end, she just exhaled through her enstril, and she faced away from Furnacia altogether.

“There are things in this universe we cannot control… That much is clear.”

The Mistress of Flame crossed the small room to the windows. She stared out into the stagnant, nearly starless expanse, faceplates as emotionless as the unforgiving scape. Furnacia noticed how she stayed just out of the line of sight of the protoform, and how delicately she lifted her servo to rest on the window, like that were her expression of pain.

“I grow old…” she began. “I was there, when the barbarian tribes and the Primes warred across the face of our planet. I do not wish for the same thing to happen on this new world.”

Furnacia’s vocalizer sparked in her intake. She reset it, and bowed her helm slightly, considering the length of The Mistress of Flame’s ancient frame and flowing cape. The Mistress of Flame balled her digits against the window, but grasping nothing, that reality sobering the atmosphere.

“I speak to Caminus, but I know not his reasons. Even so, we should not shun the new life he gave us.”

She hesitated, then looked behind her, a wistfulness and wonder settling over her as she viewed the protoform once again: the florescent tears still pouring absently from her optics. The Mistress of Flame went away from the window towards the protoform. She stopped before the protoform, and a smile curved her derma, her servos coming together to tilt up the protoform’s helm with sweet delicacy, like she had cupped ahold of something blessed.

 _“La lacrima,”_ The Mistress of Flame hummed. “The one who cries—even while she is so young that her body is merely living metal and electricity. We should not forsake her.”

The Mistress of Flame let the face of vacant optics drop. The protoform twitched, but The Mistress of Flame nevertheless looked back to Furnacia, her optics half-lidded once more.

And she asked again: “Well?”

The word cut Furnacia to the quick. Furnacia’s fans cycled out air she did not know she had been holding. She straightened her posture and lifted her helm, staring into The Mistress of Flame’s optics assuredly.

“The plans have not changed,” Furnacia decided. “It should not be an issue to keep another onboard when we make landfall on Asteroid GFB-2 within the coming cycle to fill our solar engines.”

For the first time, Furnacia saw a full smile break across The Mistress of Flame’s faceplates. It was only a brief, bright expression, however, and The Mistress of Flame was soon occupied with dipping her helm in gratitude and interlocking her digits back together.

“Thank you, Matriarch.” She lifted her helm back up. “You are most gracious.”

Furnacia said nothing, instead waiting as The Mistress of Flame glanced back to the protoform, now still as it had been before. She frowned slightly, and she turned her frame fully, examining the protoform with an odd wariness to her composure.

“She will be interesting this one,” The Mistress of Flame said, seemingly out of nowhere. “She has something of Solus Prime in her—something in her eyes that make the tears, but I’m not sure what.”

Furnacia pressed together her derma, having no response to the flowery words of the religion head. She viewed a slice of the protoform from behind The Mistress of Flame, and she silently scorned at it, gritting her teeth and shaking her head.

The untimely femme would be a burden on their energy supplies: albeit, in the eyes of the one who held the hearts of the people, a necessary one.


	2. A New Life

_And so the sun arose, and envious Megatronus slayed the fair Solus Prime…_

The no-longer protoform looked up from the datapad to the one in the room with her, speaking:

“The god of your idolatry is dead?”

Basalt—the dark-plated, eager archivist who had been charged to watch over her—whipped around from the shelving unit, almost startled. She blinked with wide optics, then shook her helm and stood straighter.

“Dead? No, not exactly,” she replied, touching her chassis with the servo free from cradling datapads. “Solus Prime lives on in us—all of us. Our spark carriers part of the light of hers.”

The new bot cocked her helm, and Basalt grew a little forlorn and cast her gaze to the side.

“But, you wouldn’t understand that yet, would you?”

An uncomfortable current tingled the new bot’s wiring. Basalt did not follow up on her statement, and instead turned back to shelving the datapads, letting the silence fall as it would. The new bot stared at her for a moment longer, bewildered, and not quite understanding that she was feeling so, before turning her attention back to her powered-on datapad. She read on:

_And thus, the first Cybertronian Civil War began._

_‘How awful,’_ she processed to herself, almost instinctually. _‘How awful to destroy the one you love.’_

She continued through the text, learning about the barbarian tribes and the planetwide destruction and the passing eons. She read patiently the bulky, long history, even as an odd sense of discomfort built upon her spark as the knowledge of the tragedies increased. So, it surprised her when a particular passage caught her attention, and she paused.

_Then, Esmeral, the City of Precious Gems, which lied outside the guarded walls of Crystal City, was taken and eradicated by the forces of Onyx Prime…_

“Esmeral?” the bot questioned aloud, rising her optics from the datapad once more.

She had not noticed that her companion had gone, and so did not expect Basalt to have to come around the shelves from the other side. She stopped, almost like she had physically hit a wall of confusion, and hesitated there for a moment.

“I’m sorry?”

“Esmeral,” the bot repeated. “The city?”

“Oh!” she brightened, and then lost her spirits a little. “The heretic’s city.”

The bot tilted her helm, and Basalt fluttered where she stood, like she realized how brutal she sounded, then settled again. She reset her vocalizer, and then spread her servos out from her pelvis.

“The ground-worshippers.” She gave meaning to fanning her servos out like a flatland. “The residents of Crystal City, and those related to them, would worship the believed physical form of Primus over the holy Primes.”

“Oh…” the bot warbled, not comprehending the awfulness in that.

Basalt did not expound, instead shifting away in discomfort. She returned to the other shelves and left the bot with a final bite:

“But, it doesn’t matter now… We should be glad to be rid of them.”

The bot curled the datapad closer to herself, almost to shield her poor spark from the evil of that statement. She had no way to know if Basalt was justified in her scathing: she so young, knew little of the planet from where they came or the people there, but some jerking feeling inside of her told her that Basalt’s prejudice was in some fundamental way wrong. The discrepancy frightened her, and she shivered in the wake of it, unfamiliar with the emotion within her, and sensing the full hinderance of her lack of maturity.

Eventually, for she could not quiver there forever, she sought further understanding in the text of the datapad. She finished the one, and then moved on to others. She learned how the other Primes fell, and another was chosen, and the war ended, and the Golden Age came upon the back of the wing struts of Nova Prime. Reading of that, she became more aware of the wings folding down her back. She reached to touch her shoulder strut with the contentment of kinship humming in her wiring. Comfort came with the knowledge that there was another similar to her in some way.

**“Attention! Prepare to dock: we will be approaching Asteroid GFB-2 within the next solar cycle.”**

The bot snapped aware to attention. As if cued by the announcement, Basalt scurried from the rows of datapads, almost in a panic as she rushed to the opposite side of the room. The bot watched her disappear, then blinked a moment before looking towards the window. It was shuttered over, perhaps to keep her from becoming distracted, yet she rose from her seat and approached the window. In her time elsewhere on the ship, she remembered seeing windows that were open to the outside, so, surely, this one had a way to open as well. She scanned the smooth wall around the perimeter of the window and found a switch.

The shutter hissed back with a quick snap. The movement startled her, enough that she jerked her helm to face the glass and met her optics.

For the first time since her emergence, she saw the watery illusion of her own likeness reflected back to her. She saw at the outset that her optics were red, and she was alarmed to realize so: for she had considered the appearance of the other bots she had met, but never before had the idea to consider her own. She examined further, and she noticed the rise and fall of her green helm plating, and how her wings sloped just so. She could trace the dark seams that split the plating down her frame, and she discerned the translucent shades of different greens and greys that colored her pieces.

But what drew her attention most was the visage of her faceplates. There, like haphazard streams, lines of pink dribbled from her optic hollows—stained there, on the base of her protoform. She touched them with the tips of her digits, awed by the marks, yet understanding they were the color of her lubricant, and connecting that to her fleeting memories of sitting somewhere and having the sensation of pain bring forth liquid from her optics.

Perhaps she would have come to some deeper understanding from the experience of viewing herself, but a movement outside the window jarred her attention. A grey shape eclipsed the window, showing passing protrusion and plating seams that signaled the continuing motion of the shape. It stretched forth and sidelong until a slice of the blackness returned, and then dropped vertically with a swing that made the ship quiver. Basalt did not come running to see these odd actions of the outside, but the bot did hear her speak from wherever she had dashed off to, in a quick and disarrayed voice.

“Yes, yes—All the datapads are accounted for, so we can land.”

The bot looked away from the window. She had thought she turned to find Basalt, but in a moment realized that her optics had went for the door. The comprehension of her instinct caused her to pause with a little fright, faced with the unknown of the grandness of her desires. Before, she had been told what to do: she had read the datapads others had wanted her to—but she had gone to the window of her own volition, and now sat without an order and with another longing pulling at her spark.

Was it awful to be like that? The possibility computed itself in her processor. To be wrong, or to be raucous or impulsive, she could grasp at, but had never been scolded for or told the consequences of. It was something abstract, or distant to her, like the love the people around her held for one long-dead, and the hatred they had for those she had never met.

The conflict of her framing her known and unknown was enough to make her rise. She walked towards the door, no tension to stay in her wiring—only the satisfaction of the door sliding open and the air settling back around her. She heard Basalt, somewhere, speaking again to someone, but barely paid it any mind. Instead, she stepped out into the hallway, and waited for the voice to cease as the door snapped back shut behind her.

**Author's Note:**

> My take on the current IDW Mistress of Flame was that she was once the captain who piloted Caminus to his colony planet !!!


End file.
